What was the first power cable that you noticed a difference in the sound?

Going back to original thread, acquired a Shunyata Delta NR plugged into my McIntosh MC275 IV.  I replaced an AQ Thunder.  The Delta NR amazingly opened up the sound stage to a great degree.  The Thunder has more bottom end by the openness is not there compared to the Delta NR.  That said, I just purchased another Delta NR to run to my Furman conditioner.  I have the Shunyata running to my Mcintosh tube pre-amp and looking to update to the Delta line.  Lastly, I have Audioquest running from my Krell solid state for home theater and will replace as well with Shunyata.

Without talking about cables made with unobtainium, where did you start hear a difference.

@curiousjim The first time I heard a power cable make a difference was at CES in 1990. I was visiting George Cardas where he was showing of a set of Magnaplanar MG3s that had a custom wood frame that was built to be both stiffer than the original frames and non-resonant. He took an interest in the amps we were showing and I was interested to see how the speakers worked with our amps, so I brought our MA-1s over after hours. We played the system for a while. It sounded good, better than I remember MG3s ever sounding.

George then suggested we try a set of his power cords on the amps. We did, and immediately the system got better across the board. The bass, which by comparison seemed a bit ponderous, became nimble and fast with better impact. I was not sure that was the difference so I arranged the cables behind the amps so I could switch them in a couple of seconds without having to shut the amps off. The difference was immediately audible in either direction- better with the Cardas cables and worse with the stock cords. I bought them on the spot and still have them.

Years later I sorted out why they worked so well. The MA-1s draw a lot of power and the voltage drop across the stock cord was enough to reduce the filament voltage and B+ at the same time- so the amp made less power. The Cardas cables simply had less voltage drop.

The take away is if you have a lot of current draw you’re more likely to notice a difference with power cords. If the equipment has well regulated power supplies with good headroom you’re less likely to hear a difference. That explains why power cords don’t seem to affect our MP-1 preamp or class D amps all that much, but affect our OTLs quite a lot.

So you might look to see if power draw has anything to do with it in your setup.

To me the biggest difference was when I bought and tried the AQ Dragon source for my ARC Ref 9 CDP. I originally was using the Shunyata Sigma digital PC. It was so great that I will be also buying it for my ARC ref 6SE and sell my Shunyata Sigma HC PC.  

Been running a Synergistic research cord for around 3 weeks now on my Lyngdorf 3400. Didn’t expect to hear any difference especially since Lyngdorf says their amps are impervious to cords. I absolutely hear a difference. It sounds bigger and more bouncy I would say. It’s got different biullets you plug in basically dark/ medium / and detailed or bright. I like the dark one the best I think but an absolute difference and can change them on the fly